The Line Between Bitterness and Happiness
by Garaumond
Summary: There is a faint line between bitterness and happiness, called Love, and it burns her stomach. An introspective piece on Miily. Contains slight LelouchxMilly, slight SuzakuxMilly, and slight LloydxCecile


A/N: An introspective Milly piece not dealing solely with "Lelouch's wuv for her". Yay. And it is angsty and tragic together. I need to try writing fluff to stop making up these sad fics, don't I? Oh well. Enjoy and review!

Pairings: slight LelouchxMilly, slight SuzakuxMilly, slight LloydxCecile

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><p>There was probably a name for the feeling in her stomach, this acidity and sweetness. She thought that all people must have felt it at some point, and in that, realized its potency, its addictiveness. It was like adrenaline and melancholy coursing through her veins, and was almost dangerously awful and wonderful.<p>

She wonders if this is what love is, the faint line between bitterness and happiness, between death and life, and all the things in the middle. When she looks at Lelouch, there is only a vast feeling of separation and...something akin to pity. Maybe it isn't love after all, for him, but equal parts pity and admiration.

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><p>Lelouch looks so sad and miserable, like a little boy whose ice cream fell on the ground, and is just now understanding that he cannot rewind time, cannot put back the ice cream whole. She thinks that maybe he has felt the line as well, but does not rejoice in its feeling as she does. What a loveless creature, she thinks to herself, and he could be, or maybe his definition of love is far more regretful and twisted than hers is. Or perhaps she is the twisted one.<p>

Suzaku is much more idealistic than humans should be. In a way, he is just like Nunnally, with her dreams of a kind and gentle world. Perhaps, she thinks, the line has touched him too, only he doesn't even recognize it, and passes it off as a stomachache. What a stupid fool. She didn't think that she could ever see eye to eye, much less love him.

Maybe only she can see the line, or maybe only people who acutely understand others can see it. The trait is a mark of a statesman, a politician, a leader, a word-spinner, and a person utterly without truth in their souls.

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><p>Love could've been present, she muses. Maybe she did love Lelouch, for his similar nature to hers, although his was more sharp and venomous than hers could ever be. Maybe she did love Suzaku, for his utterly optimistic view. But maybe she couldn't love at all.<p>

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><p>A kindred soul was found in Lloyd Asplund, current fiancee. "Do you know what love is?" she asks childishly, in a manner only those below seven and people who never quite let go of their dreams know how to.<p>

"Love is...the feeling of hopelessness." he states finally, after thinking for some time.

"Hopelessness?"

"Of course. It is a widely known cliché that hating someone makes you love them. But that's just the moronic fantasies of bored housewives. Love is the acidic feeling in your gut when you realize that no, falling in love with the man or woman of your dreams is nothing more than a fantasy, and you will always be two steps behind them."

"Seems like you know it well."

"Sounds like you do too."

She decides not to ask him about whom he loves, but the glances he sends toward Cecile are better than words.

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><p>It has been two months since the fall of the Demon King, and she still does not know who she loves.<p>

Suzaku was dead and gone, and only Zero was left, for any simple-minded fool could see the connection. But the world was filled with those morons. Or maybe she was just smarter than most people.

Rivalz was a friend, plain and simple. Nothing more, nothing less, and he would never be. Why should she love him? He had not experienced the tightrope yet, and until he did, would be nothing more than a friend.

And Lelouch was dead. She thinks that he might've been the one, if only, if only.

And the world was filled with_ 'if onlys' _and _'could'veshould'vewould'ves' _but none of those made any difference, and she did not know who she loved yet.

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><p>A year after the end of Lelouch, she understands.<p>

She loves the past, or to be more accurate, the idea of the past. She holds on to memories of Student Council and Ashford Academy like wine to an alcoholic, and remembers the best of everyone. She is two steps forward and cannot move on to a harsher world away from the magic of Neverland and Wonderland rolled up and put together.

It is sad. But she doesn't care. For what is the world without an Alice or Peter Pan who grasps at the ashes of a lost time? The world had already lost Peter Pan and Captain Hook, the former to that hated foe, adulthood, and the latter to his own idealistic vision. Alice was not about to leave now.

So the bitterness and sweetness remains, but it is slightly less harsh than before, and she can stand it now. And Alice holds on and moves forward, the Earth spinning on its axis in time.


End file.
